


The Frost King

by magisterpavus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura & Keith (Voltron) Friendship, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Sexual Assault, Curses, Fluff and Smut, Gift Giving, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Minor Violence, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Pagan Gods, Prophecy, Shapeshifting, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:47:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21939940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterpavus/pseuds/magisterpavus
Summary: The winter Keith knows is cold and dark and unforgiving, so when he is left to die in the forest, he expects never to leave it alive.Then Keithmeetswinter. His name is Shiro, and he was once a king.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 55
Kudos: 681





	The Frost King

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY HOLIDAYS, for those who celebrate it I hope you have a very merry Christmas (eve), for those who don't I hope your day is merry too! Also, apparently today is the pre-Christian Slavic winter festival of Koliada, so that worked out nicely. Whatever you celebrate & wherever you are, I hope this story brings you some warmth ;D
> 
> I took inspiration from the Russian story of Morozko or Ded Moroz, who is kind of like Russian Santa now but has roots in Slavic paganism. I also took some liberties, lol...for example, he doesn't walk around with a magic staff (tho that is cool as fuck) or have a long white beard, or ride in a troika, and the prophecy is new because you know we love some good ol' true love breaking curses here. 
> 
> Many thanks to [Tane](https://twitter.com/Its_Tane) for helping with Russian translations & being an all-around supportive star, you're my hero. 
> 
> Follow me on twitter [@saltyshiro](https://twitter.com/saltyshiro) for more sheith and nerdy folklore/mythology/history/fantasy stuff!

Keith’s father was a good man, but he loved Keith’s mother too much, and so when she was lost, so was he. 

Keith wished he remembered his father better before his mother vanished, but he did not. The only version he knew was the one shrouded in a hollow grief. It was this very grief which drove his father to desperately seek another love, and when he found her, to be willfully blind to her cruelty towards his son.

Keith’s new mother hated him. He knew that. She was a widow with a son of her own, and she disliked that Keith’s father’s attention was divided between the two boys, but reserved mostly for Keith. So she began to tell his father lies. She told him of Keith’s mischief and violence towards her son, and though Keith promised his father he had not done such things, his father grew more and more uncertain. Keith’s new mother was a very good liar. Her lies were more convincing than Keith’s truth. 

And so, when she at last told Keith’s father that she would leave him if he did not send his son away into the woods when the first snows fell, Keith’s father meekly did it. 

Keith did not hate his father for this, but he did not want to go. He told his father he would die in the woods, in the snow all alone, but his father would not look at him, and said Keith had always had too much of his mother in him anyway, and would have left eventually just like her. He left Keith in a snowdrift at the base of a great pine, and though Keith struggled to follow him through the snow, calling after him desperately, his father did not look back. After a while, Keith gave up — not because he didn’t think he could make it back, but because he knew he would just be sent away again if he returned.

Keith huddled there in the snow, shivering as the cold and wet seeped through his threadbare clothes. He tipped his head back against the tree trunk and wrapped his arms around himself. He was only fourteen, but while other boys his age might be working in the fields or courting girls or even marrying, Keith was here in the snow, about to die.

He was not afraid of death; it made him both sad and curious. He wondered what it might feel like. He wondered if he might see his mother there. She had left when he was barely seven, and he had almost forgotten what her face looked like. Perhaps he would not even recognize her.

The thought made him cry. He covered his face as he wept and shivered harder, the tears drying and freezing on his skin. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want his stepmother to hate him nor his father to stop caring about him. It wasn’t fair. He tried to stand up, to try to run away, find a new village or a place beyond this forest, but his legs were numb. 

He cried out when he tried to stand again and sudden pain stabbed through him, and crumpled back down with a furious sob, staring at his blue fingertips and frost-encrusted skin. 

“Are you cold?”

Startled, Keith’s head jerked up to stare at the figure standing between the trees, robed all in a sparkling white so bright it almost hurt to look. His hair, though, was long and black, tumbling down his back and past his shoulders in a smooth veil save for the white streak which fell into his keen silver eyes.

Keith’s breath hitched. He knew who the Frost King was; every child had heard the tales of the cruel demon who ruled over the snowy woods and stole away the lost and forgotten with a single icy touch. 

But he had imagined a withered old creature with a long tangled beard and mean eyes and cracked teeth like icicles, not...this. He looked young, younger than Keith’s father though Keith was sure he must be centuries older, as old as the snows themselves. His face was marked not by wrinkles, but by a pale scar stretching across the bridge of his nose, as if sliced by a sword-tip many years past. It did nothing to lessen the handsome lines of his coldly lovely face.

The Frost King stepped closer, his eyes narrowing. “Y-yes, milord,” Keith stammered, quickly looking away and struggling to keep his voice even. He must be polite; after all, he might be in the presence of royalty, no matter how strange. Nonetheless, his gaze strayed with desperate longing to the thick white cloak the king wore. It pooled around his feet in creamy ripples and looked too soft to be real.

“Hmm,” the Frost King said. “Why are you out here, then, and without even a coat?”

Keith shook his head, lower lip trembling again though he valiantly held the tears back. “My father left me, milord,” he said. “He didn’t want me anymore.”

The Frost King lifted a dark, perfect eyebrow. “I do not think that is how children are meant to work,” he said. “Why didn’t he want you?”

Keith could no longer feel his fingers at all. “I don’t know, milord,” he mumbled. “His new wife didn’t want me, and he really wants my mother, but she’s gone, so he’s persuaded himself he wants his new wife more than me…” Keith trailed off, eyelids heavy and teeth chattering. “I’m sorry, milord. I’m very tired...I’m just going to sleep for a little while…”

“Oh, no you don’t, not yet,” the Frost King huffed, and crossed the clearing in two steps, sweeping Keith up into his arms and covering him with his cloak. Keith gasped at the sudden warmth, then in surprise as he remembered the stories. 

The Frost King was touching him, but it was not cold. Keith was all at once so warm he could hardly bear it. He began to cry again, this time in pain as his cold limbs prickled with sudden heat. The Frost King’s frown deepened, and he wrapped Keith up in the cloak’s soft fur more carefully. “It will be over soon,” he promised, chest rumbling against Keith’s frozen cheek. “You will never be so cold again.”

Keith began to shiver for a new reason. “Are you Death?” he asked, teeth chattering and blue fingers curling tight into thick white fur. 

The Frost King did not look at him, but walked onward through the trees. “It has been said. Do you believe it?”

Keith did not know what to believe. “The stories say that your very touch brings death,” he whispered. “So if you are Death, then I am long dead already.”

“Do you feel dead?”

Keith closed his eyes. “I feel tired.”

“Then sleep.”

Keith slept. It was the deepest slumber of his life, and when he awoke, he was in a large, soft, warm bed before a crackling fireplace. He could hardly remember what the cold felt like, at least, until he saw the figure stirring a pot above the fire. He had shed his cloak, and beneath it he wore simple black attire embroidered in silvery swirls of snowflakes and bare tree branches. Without looking at Keith, he said, “You are not dead and this is not some afterlife. Would you like some soup?”

Keith blinked stupidly, slowly pushing himself to sit up against the pillows piled all around him. “Yes, please,” he said, glancing around the space. It seemed to be some sort of cabin, small but neat, with the bed taking up most of the area. The fireplace was wide and the hearth was clean, and the simple table was set with all manner of foods, too many to count. There was a vase filled with snowdrops on the windowsill, and outside Keith could see nothing but opaque white. The wind howled outside. A blizzard? He shivered.

The Frost King approached the bed with the soup, holding the hot metal bowl as if it did not burn him. Perhaps it did not. He spooned some into a smaller bowl made of smooth dark pottery, and laid it on the bedside table with a spoon. “Eat,” he said. “You are too skinny.”

Keith stared at him. “What?”

The Frost King scowled and gestured to him. “Skinny,” he emphasized. “And small. Far too small. Humans need to eat. Did your father feed you?”

Keith frowned down at the bowl. “I…” In truth, his new brother had gotten all the best portions, lately. Keith had been left with the scraps, and what little more his father remembered to save for him, if he remembered at all. He fought back the urge to cry again, and turned away.

The Frost King did not scold him, but sighed. “Eat,” he said again, gentler, and crossed the room to stand beside the window, looking out as if he were expecting someone.

Keith hesitantly lifted the spoon to try the soup. He gasped at the first taste — warm and rich, like nothing he had ever tasted before. He swallowed, and immediately took another spoonful, and another, and another. The Frost King turned to watch him, chuckling, and brought over a plate of buttery brown bread from the table. Keith set upon it like a starving hound, forgetting his manners in his hunger. The Frost King did not seem to mind.

“Well,” he said when Keith was scraping at the bottom of the bowl, “I suppose you cannot go back to this father of yours.”

Keith paused. He set his spoon down and looked up at the Frost King. “I have nowhere else to go, milord.”

The Frost King gestured to their surroundings. “You could stay here.”

Keith faltered. “But — but milord, this is your home, I couldn’t…”

“Not so,” the Frost King said. “It is simply a place. A place that can be yours, if you wish.”

“And where will you go?”

The Frost King waved a hand. “Anywhere I like. This forest is my ‘home,’ I do not stay in any particular place. I do not need a warm fire nor a warm bed nor a warm meal. Where the snow is, I will be. That is all.”

Keith tilted his head. “So you will leave when the snow melts?”

“You ask many questions,” the Frost King said. “There is always some snow in these woods, this far north.”

“Oh.” Keith finished the soup and set aside the bowl. “Thank you, milord. This is very good food.”

“Mm.” The Frost King nodded to the table. “There is more, if you wish.”

Keith shook his head shyly. “Thank you, but that was a very fine meal, I do not think I can eat anymore.” The Frost King shrugged and plucked a blackberry from one of the bowls, holding it between thumb and forefinger before popping it into his mouth. It was then that Keith noticed his right hand – it was warped, the texture of skin entirely different from the other hand, extending up his arm with the roughness of dark wood. It was an unnerving shade of gray, not the color of living flesh at all, and each finger was tipped in a curving black claw. 

The Frost King caught him staring, and dropped the hand to his side. “Are you afraid, boy?” he asked, not accusing, simply curious.

Keith hesitated. “What are you, milord?” he whispered.

The Frost King raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

“The stories say you are a god,” Keith said. “Or else a monster. But I don’t know…”

The Frost King chuckled. “Do I not seem godly to you?” Keith blanched, stammering an apology, and he just laughed, shaking his head. “It does not matter,” he said. “You may call me Shiro. Is that enough?”

“Shiro,” Keith repeated. “That...does not sound like a god’s name, milord. Nor a monster’s.”

Shiro’s mouth twitched. “Mm. Not quite, no.” His eyes were warm as the fire. 

“My name is Keith,” Keith offered before he could think better of it.

“Hmm,” Shiro said, regarding him. “Names. A dangerous thing to give. But I will keep yours safe, you have my word.”

 _What good is the word of the Frost King?_ Keith did not say. “Thank you, milord.” He wet his lips. “I...I don’t want to be rude. But – in all the stories, you do not give favors for free. You saved my life, and I –”

Shiro raised a finger and Keith trailed off into wary silence. “There is no debt,” he said. “Stay here as long as you wish. Days, months, years – it matters not. You will incur no wrath from me.”

“But surely there is _something,”_ Keith said, frustrated with this easy selflessness, suspecting a catch, somewhere. His life had not been one of gifts given without something expected in return – and usually the cost was far greater than the gain.

Shiro smiled. “No,” he said. “But if you insist, I suppose there is one thing you could do for me.”

Keith leaned forward. “What?”

“Don’t die.” Shiro raised an eyebrow. “I cannot promise I will find you in time if you decide to lay in another snowdrift – so don’t do that. You will have food, water, shelter, and whatever else you wish right here for as long as you desire. Do we have a deal?”

It didn’t feel like a very good deal on Shiro’s end, but Keith frowned and nodded slowly. “Yes, milord.”

“Good.” Shiro huffed. “And there’s no need for that. I’m not a lord of anything, though I can’t say I don’t appreciate the flattery.” He walked to the door and inclined his head. “Get some rest, Keith. I may not return for some time; do not be alarmed. You are safe here.” And before Keith could reply, the Frost King opened the door, letting in a swirl of howling white wind before it swung shut behind him, and he disappeared into the snowy night. 

Keith sat alone in the cabin in confusion. Then he shrugged, rolled over, and fell asleep for awhile longer.

*

True to his word, Shiro did not return for some time. The blizzard raged on, but Keith had no need of going out in it. The little cabin was cozy and warm and its supply of food and water never seemed to run out. The chamberpot also emptied itself, a phenomenon that Keith did not question, just as he did not question how the snowdrops in the vase on the windowsill never browned or wilted, but bloomed eternally. 

After a while, though, Keith found himself lonely. He would pace the length of the cabin for what felt like hours, lost in his thoughts but trying to exercise his cramped legs, and would always end up flopped down onto the bed, staring at the pine beams above him until he swore he could see shapes in them, after which point he would usually fall asleep. 

Then one morning, he woke up to a shelf filled with books. Keith had never been very good at his letters, but out of sheer boredom he cracked one open and tried his best. He found that the words seemed to...somehow adjust to his eyes as he read, and before long he could understand exactly what was being said, and lay in bed eagerly devouring story after story for the next several days. The bookshelf refilled itself, but after awhile even reading became boring. 

It was late at night when something scratched at the door. Keith bolted upright, unsure if he should take one of the kitchen knives for protection before opening it. Then he heard another noise with the scratching – a high-pitched whimpering. Bewildered, Keith crept over to the door and took a deep breath, then cracked it open.

A tiny wolf pup tumbled over the threshold, its fur so black and shining it almost looked blue, its dark eyes blinking blearily up at Keith before it let out another soft yip. Its paws were covered in snow and the little thing was shivering. 

Keith hurried to wrap it up in blankets, any fear of its being a wolf melting away as it began to make more pathetic little sounds and toddled over the floorboards, barely able to walk in its half-frozen state. “Did Shiro send you to me?” he asked it once he had it all swaddled in soft quilt. “Or did you find me all on your own?”

The pup whined and licked his face, ears flicking forward and stubby tail wagging as it began to warm up. Keith smiled and laid down on the bed with the pup on the pillow next to him. It made a sound of discontent, crawling half out of its blanket-nest to snuggle up against his chest. “Oh,” Keith said, soft and pleased, and gave it a gentle scratch behind the ears as it let out a content sigh and drifted off. 

Keith named the wolf pup Kosmo, after one of the characters in the endless supply of books. The cabin supplied just enough fresh meat for the wolf to grow very large very fast. Keith didn’t mind. Kosmo was always very careful around him; even when they were playing, he never let his teeth dig in and always kept a distance when Keith wanted him to. He was a very big and very good wolf, and sometimes he left to hunt in the snowy forest, but he always returned to stretch in front of the fire and let Keith pillow his head on the wolf’s fluffy back.

Keith began to grow, too. As it turned out, proper food and exercise did wonders. When the snow began to thaw at last, there was a knock on his door. Thinking it must be Shiro, he flung it open, only to see a fine hunting knife and a bow with arrows on the doorstep. 

Keith took the hint, and with Kosmo’s help, began to learn the delicate skill of hunting. It was a challenge, but Keith had always liked challenges that ended in rewards, and he liked the exercise. He liked hunting hares and birds more than deer, though – he preferred to watch the deer, simply sitting from a distance and observing their graceful movements through the twiggy foliage as they searched for the first green leaves of spring. 

He also got rather good at fishing. Kosmo would sit on the riverbank, head tilted in utter confusion as Keith waded into the frigid water and speared the fish, or else caught the slippery creatures in his bare hands with a shout of triumph that startled all the nearby birds into flight.

When spring came, Keith waited for Shiro, sure the Frost King would return and tell him he had to leave. But the Frost King did not come, and so Keith stayed, and the spring turned to summer, and the summer to winter again, and so it went. 

*

Keith was sixteen when Shiro returned. It was the dead of winter, and Keith was building an addition to the cabin, a lean-to where he could perhaps keep a horse. He had been wanting a horse for some time – the trek to the nearest village was long and arduous on foot, so he rarely made it – and although he would not be able to buy one until spring, he thought he should be prepared. He also had no real money – it did not exist in the cabin – but he figured he could trade some of the fancy trinkets on the cabin shelves for a decent steed.

He was reconsidering his choice to chop wood in the freezing wind when a voice from the trees made him drop his ax in disbelief. “I thought we agreed you were not going to endanger your life.”

“Shiro!” Keith exclaimed, and then cleared his throat, straightening up and pushing his now long hair out of his eyes. “You’ve come. I wasn’t sure you ever would.”

Shiro remained in the shadow of the trees though his silver eyes shone like burnished coins. “You have managed well on your own,” he said. “Until now. You have such fine hands, it would be a shame if frostbite took them.”

Keith blinked, looking down at his hands. He was wearing worn, fingerless gloves which he had worn on the day he left home. His hands were too big for them now, but he kept them as a memento. His fingertips were indeed a bit blue, but there was nothing fine about his hands, calloused and work-rough as they were. 

“Give me your gloves,” Shiro said, stepping out from the treeline. Keith swore the silver streak in his hair had widened, but could not be certain.

He hesitated. “I would prefer to keep them, milord,” he admitted. “My father gave them to me.”

“I will not take them from you,” Shiro said, and extended his right hand. “Merely make them more suitable for a young man’s hands, not a child’s.”

Keith eyed him, then nodded and slipped off the gloves, gingerly handing them over. The air between them wavered for a moment, and then Shiro handed the gloves back. They were as they had been before, but all the holes were gone, the fabric was thicker, and they fit like, well, a glove. Shiro handed him a pair of mittens, too, and sighed, “Humor me. Bringing back lost fingertips is beyond my power, I think.”

Keith slipped the mittens on over the gloves, his hands immediately warm and snug. “Thank you, milord,” he said. “Although I think you have already given me plenty of favors.”

“Still not a lord,” Shiro said. “And why don’t I give you one more, hm?”

At first, Keith was sure he was seeing things, but after a few moments it became clear that the pale figure emerging from the woods was not a mirage but a fine dappled gray stallion, with a proud head and prancing legs. He snorted at the sight of Keith, and trotted over, then around him in a circle before tossing his head and snorting again, this time as if in approval.

“He is yours,” Shiro said in Keith’s shocked silence as he stared agape at the horse, a creature so lovely it would have cost a king’s fortune at market. “His name is Serebryany, and he will serve you well.”

 _Silvery._ It was a good name for a horse so brilliant. “I –” Keith stopped, looking at them both in amazement. “I cannot accept this gift, mil – Shiro.”

Shiro’s brow lowered. “Why not?”

“You have already given enough,” Keith said firmly. “And I am sorry, I know you said I owe you nothing, but it does not feel right to accept more, so much –”

“Why doesn’t it feel right?” Shiro demanded, a fierce glint in his eye. Keith took a step back and Serebryany shied away. “You deserve these things, Keith. Or is that in question?”

“I just don’t understand,” Keith said, half-pleading. “Why me? Why give me these things and ask for nothing in return?”

Shiro tilted his head. “I wanted to,” he said. “Farewell for now, Keith.” He turned on his heel.

“Wait!” Keith exclaimed, all at once frightened by the thought that he would not see Shiro for another two years, or perhaps even longer. His mittened hand brushed against Shiro’s right hand, and the Frost King paused as blue-white fractals of ice spread across Keith’s hand, terribly cold even through the cloth. He snatched his hand away, eyes wide. “When...when will I see you again?” Keith asked.

“When you ought to,” Shiro said with a single backwards glance. Keith watched helplessly as he glided off into the trees and vanished amidst the falling snow.

Serebryany nosed at his shoulder, and numbly, Keith gave him a pat.

*

In his seventeenth year of life and his third year living in the cozy cabin, Keith returned to the village he was born in to find his father.

He had a plan, a speech all written out in his mind. He would be gracious to his father, kind and forgiving, and he would show his father how well he was doing and promise his father a better life, away from the cruel woman who had banished Keith from his home. Surely his father would listen to such reason, and see how hale and hardy his son had grown, and want to return to the cabin with him. 

But when Keith reached the house he had grown up in, it was not there. Only a charred, skeletal wooden frame remained, and all within was ashes. Keith sat on his horse, staring numbly at the sight, before one of the villagers approached him curiously. It was a young woman, and she showed no sign of recognizing him, for she greeted him as if he were a nobleman. 

Perhaps he looked like one atop his gray stallion in his thick fur cloak, but he felt like the poorest man alive when she said, “If you’re looking for the man who lived there, sudar’, you should know he’s a year dead. House burnt to the ground in the night, and his wife and son were gone by morning. To the city, I think.”

“A year dead,” Keith echoed, a pit opening up in his stomach. “Does he have a grave – somewhere to pay respects?”

She pointed him to the churchyard down the lane, and so he rode, staring straight ahead, his throat tight. Dead. His father was dead. And he had died thinking Keith was dead, too. Why had he not tried to return sooner? Why had he waited until it was too late?

He sat alone in the churchyard before the new headstone. It did not feel real. With his palm pressed to the cold granite and damp earth, he could not believe his father was buried beneath him. 

Keith did not mean to cry, yet kneeling there on the grave of his father, the tears began to fall and they would not stop. “I forgive you,” he whispered, helplessly tracing his father’s name with shaking fingertips. “I am your son, and I forgive you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

At length, he became aware of a presence behind him, just as his limbs began to lock up in shock and cold and his vision became blurry from weeping. A cool, heavy hand rested upon his shoulder with a gentle squeeze. “It is not your fault.”

“I should have returned,” Keith whispered, covering his tearstained face and shaking his head. “I should have told him I was alive.”

“Oh, Keith.” Shiro’s hand stroked up the curve of his shoulder and neck, curling warmly but for a moment in his braided hair. “Your father died long ago, the moment he left you for dead.”

Keith folded in on himself, weeping in earnest, and Shiro remained beside him, wrapping Keith up in warm arms, strong and secure. Keith knew he was right, but the truth hurt worse than frostbite. Keith did not know how long they knelt there together, but eventually, when his eyes fell half-lidded and the cold started to sting, the world around them shifted and shimmered and they were back in the cabin, sitting on the rug Keith had woven a year past on a loom he’d made based off the one his mother left behind. It was a rug of rich reds and golds, scenes of a place far away from here, where the sun shone always and the air was warm and pleasant and there was no snow at all.

But without the snow, he would not have Shiro. Trembling, Keith leaned further into him, trying to memorize how the curve of his spine fit against the Frost King’s broad chest, how his head nestled perfectly into the slope of his shoulder. It was good to be held, by him. Keith inhaled, exhaled, learned how to breathe again. Shiro’s hand slid down to his hip and squeezed, just once.

“Sleep,” he murmured, a winter breeze against Keith’s ear, and Keith did.

*

When Keith awoke, it was dark, and he lay on the bed tucked under a mountain of blankets he did not remember making. He was holding something he did not remember picking up, too, and when he opened his fist, he saw it was a small bundle of snowdrops, their fragile green stems half-crushed by his grip though the waxy white flowers remained whole. _Shiro,_ he thought, and frowned. 

Why would Shiro give him flowers?

His first thought was fanciful and impossible, yet it flooded him with warmth. Perhaps Shiro was courting him. But no – such a thing was absurd. Shiro was the Frost King, an ancient demon of the forest and the winter. He would have no such interest in a peasant boy like Keith, not even the son of a noble, much less son of a boyar, much less son of a king or emperor. 

And Keith was not a fair lady, for although there were plenty of tales of pretty peasant girls whose fates were changed when wealthy men looked upon them with a kind eye – there were none about scruffy peasant boys. In any case, though Shiro would probably be considered wealthy by anyone who saw him, as far as Keith knew he had no coin at all. He had no need of it when he could simply summon things up, whatever he wished, whenever he wished it. 

The thought of such power, so great as to be incomprehensible, made Keith shiver. He sat up, reaching over to the window to place the snowdrops in the vase with the others, then leaned back against the large carved headboard and let out a long, frustrated sigh. The very idea of Shiro taking any interest in him in that sort of way was absurd. And Keith had no desire to entertain absurd ideas that would only make his heart hurt. 

It was strange – his heart had never felt any sort of way about anyone before Shiro. Not that he did, that is, feel any sort of way about Shiro.

Grumbling, Keith threw up his hands and pulled on his boots, sure that a bit of ice-fishing would clear his stupid head of these stupid thoughts.

*

He did not see Shiro again that winter, and though in the spring he searched the forest far and wide for any trace of the Frost King, he could not find him, only patches of snowdrops rising up out of the thawing earth. The flowers ignited both sorrow and irritation in him; they were reminders of what was lost. He couldn’t understand it. Where did Shiro go, if not the woods? Had Keith been wrong; had Shiro lied and he was truly a king with a far-off palace beyond these trees? 

It was an alluring enough thought that the next morning, Keith rode Serebryany out of the woods, to the far north, until the snow which still remained grew too deep for safe passage. Keith stared up at the mountain peaks capped in cold white and tried to imagine Shiro up there, looking on from his distant, hidden home. He said he had no home, but how could that be? Where did he go? Did he not sleep, nor even rest?

Was he so utterly inhuman as that? Keith disliked the thought. He knew Shiro was something – other. But there was something human about him, Keith was sure. Something real, something he understood. Could demons be lonely? Could they feel anything at all?

The stories were very clear on that front, especially where the Frost King was concerned. His heart was made of ice, literally and metaphorically. But Keith was not sure he believed this. If this was so, why had Shiro saved him? For amusement? That was not a satisfying explanation, for Keith.

Eventually, he rode Serebryany back to the cabin, defeated. Wherever it was that Shiro went, it was beyond his reach. 

*

In the winter of his eighteenth year, Keith was hunting when he saw a stag.

It was the most beautiful creature he had ever laid his eyes on, and he crouched in the snowy undergrowth, stunned into stillness, his bow trained on it in disbelief. The stag was like none of the others he had seen in the forest, all red deer – this one was white as snow, and his antlers shone silver in the afternoon sunlight falling through the snow-heavy boughs. 

It made no sense that this stag should even still have his antlers, yet he had well over sixteen points, more than Keith had ever seen, as if the antlers had been growing for years without being shed. Keith’s father used to call such stags ‘monarchs,’ for their antlers looked like heavy crowns. This stag certainly held himself like one, stepping neat and graceful through the snow despite his size. Red deer were quite large, but this one was even larger. The white stag would have been the prized trophy of any hunter.

But Keith found he could not let the arrow fly. His hand fell limply from the bowstring, unable to stop staring at the white stag stepping through the snow. The creature paused mid-step and turned suddenly, turning its unblinking gaze upon Keith’s hiding spot. Neither moved. Then Keith slowly stood, sure the movement would drive the stag away in fear.

The stag stared steadily at him, head held high. Its gaze was familiar, and Keith’s heart beat faster. Could it be? 

The stag huffed, a cloud of white breath surrounding his handsome head as he bowed, just once, just slightly. Then he turned again and continued onward through the forest, not in leaps and bounds but slow and purposeful as if daring Keith to follow him.

Keith did not. He stood there, horrified. He could have _shot_ it. What if he had? Would he have killed it? Would he have killed Shiro?

He hurried back to the cabin, but when he arrived, Shiro was leaning against the doorframe, eyebrows raised. He took in Keith’s flustered appearance and tilted his head. “Something the matter?”

“You,” Keith stammered, and swallowed. “Was that – you?”

Shiro folded his arms. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific.”

Keith frowned. “The white stag.”

Shiro paused, then nodded. “Why?”

“I could have shot you,” Keith hissed. “I – why have you never told me you can become such a creature? What if I had accidentally hurt you, or, or –”

Shiro regarded him. “It would not be the first time,” he said. Keith’s eyes widened, and Shiro sighed. “What do you _think_ happens to me at the end of every winter?”

Keith stared at him. “No,” he whispered. “No, they don’t – they _kill_ you? Who –”

Shiro frowned back at him. “It does not matter _who,”_ he said, a little sharply. “It just happens.”

“Then stop turning into a white stag, and maybe hunters won’t –”

“It is not that simple, Keith,” Shiro murmured. He looked as if he were about to say something else, then stopped, and frowned deeper.

“So you’re just going to wait until another one kills you?” Keith demanded. “How could you let them do that? Why?”

“I did not realize this would be so upsetting to you,” Shiro said. 

Keith glared at him. “What? You didn’t think I would be upset to know that you _die_ each year? How do you come back?”

Shiro shook his head. “It is best not to think too much about it.” He stepped away from the cabin. “Goodbye, Keith. Until next –”

“No!” Keith exclaimed, advancing upon him. “You can’t let them kill you, Shiro! It isn’t right! You don’t deserve that.”

Shiro’s face flickered with near-pain. “Keith…”

“I don’t want you to go,” Keith snapped, standing before him, barely a handswidth apart. “Not if it means you’ll be killed.”

“This is how it has always been,” Shiro told him gently. 

“That doesn’t make it right,” Keith protested.

Shiro pursed his lips. “No. Perhaps not.” He reached up, cupping Keith’s cheek in his hand for but a moment. “But I must do it nonetheless. Be safe, Keith. I will return.”

Keith tried to grasp at him, to catch hold of his cloak and make him stay as best he could, but Shiro pulled his hands away, shaking his head with a rueful smile, and walked away into the forest to his death.

Kosmo padded out from the cabin with a whine as Keith stared after Shiro with hands curled into fists. Shiro had saved him from death once; he would not let such a debt go unpaid.

*

Keith rode Serebryany through the forest with haste, peering through the trees for any hint of silver antlers or white fur. He had hoped the sound of the horse’s hooves might drive away any hunters, but the snow muffled the noise, and the longer they rode, the bigger the fear in his chest grew. He felt hollowed out, every beat of his heart echoing louder, louder. Each year, Shiro died. How many years had this gone on? What world could be so cruel to let this happen?

The same world, perhaps, that allowed fathers to abandon their sons in the cold to die.

Keith nudged Serebryany faster, though not so fast that he couldn’t see through the blurry trees. What would he find, if he found anything at all? He had never come across the white stag’s corpse before. Perhaps Shiro would just vanish again, as if into thin air –

The agonized roar of a stag cut through the air and Keith gasped, driving Serebryany into a full gallop. The stallion leapt over the tangled briars and thick tree roots, frothing at the bit as Keith pleaded with him to go faster, even as he knew it was too late. Seeing it, though, that was worse. They burst into a clearing and two men in hunter’s furs stumbled away from the heaving body of a white stag, fallen in the snow, red blooming over its middle, staining the pelt. It wasn’t a clean shot. Fury built in Keith’s throat – they couldn’t even do it _right._

The men spoke in a dialect Keith did not know, fast and angry, but Keith was angrier. He leapt off the stallion, which reared in fright, sharp hooves startling the hunters back further. Keith didn’t even flinch, and when one of the hunters lifted his gun at Keith, Keith spat a string of curses at them, lifting his hunting knife and vowing to gut them both if they took a step closer.

Different dialects or not, the meaning seemed to come across, and the hunters exchanged looks before fleeing into the forest as Serebryany kicked out at them again and Keith lunged. 

Keith ran to the white stag’s side as soon as they were gone. The creature was still alive, but barely, breathing in labored pants, eyes rolled back. The wound was ragged and awful to look at. Keith was no healer, but even if he was, he had a feeling this could not be mended.

“Shiro,” he whispered, touching the stag’s head with shaking hands. Shiro jerked under his touch, then let out a low, resigned moan and settled again, his dark eye fixed on Keith. “I – I should have come sooner. I would have stopped them.”

The large, dark eye blinked once, and in his head, Keith heard clearly, _Once, I hoped you would be the one to stop this cycle, too. But you are not. So here I am, once more._

“The – the one?” Keith whispered, shaking his head in bewilderment. “Shiro – what do you mean? Why must this cycle exist at all?”

 _I fade,_ Shiro said, the dark eye slowly closing, breaths coming shorter and further apart. _So it goes._

“No, don’t go,” Keith started, desperate, but even as he said it, the white stag breathed his last breath. Keith crumpled. “Don’t,” he said, choked. _“Shiro.”_

He knelt there for a long time, even longer than he had at the grave of his father. The snow fell above him, covering the white stag’s body until only the curve of his silver antlers remained. They looked like nothing more than tree roots.

Keith did not weep, this time. He got to his feet, took his horse’s bridle, and simply walked away.

*

The spring was lovely, full of sunshine and flowers, but Shiro was not there. Keith knew now that he had no palace high in the mountains. He had only death. Wherever Shiro was, he was alone.

It was almost a relief when the snow fell again. Winter was death, but not for Shiro, and the snowfall had become a comfort to Keith. It meant he might see the elusive Frost King again, and after seeing the white stag die, Keith ached to know that Shiro truly had returned from such an awful fate.

He rode through the forest as often as he could, and he was certain Serebryany was no normal horse, for he could withstand the cold without complaint, even if he could be a bit lazy. Day after day he searched, but he never found Shiro.

However, one day on the cusp of early nightfall, he did find a woman. 

She was curled and shivering at the base of a towering pine tree, her pale blue cloak pooling around her slim frame. Her hair was covered by an ornately beaded kokoshnik, but she seemed to have tugged it down to help keep herself warm, revealing the unruly silver-pale curls which fell across her brow. Keith hesitated. What was an unmarried young woman from a family with what must have been a good deal of money doing out in the woods alone?

He was wary of a trap, but after surveying the area and comforting himself with the fact that Serebryany seemed unbothered, just curious of the lone woman, Keith nudged the stallion forward.

The crunch of snow as they neared the tree startled the woman, and she looked up, eyes wide. Her skin was dark and snow-flecked and her eyes were bright as new ice, and she was very pretty, and very scared. She fumbled with something in her skirts and brandished a dagger, a warning tumbling from her lips. Keith’s heart sank. Much like the hunters, he did not understand the dialect she spoke.

Slowly, Keith lifted his hands in placation, still in the saddle. “Easy,” he said, loud and clear, hoping some of the meaning would come across. “I do not mean to hurt you. But you will die if you stay in the snow too long.”

She blinked rapidly, and lowered the dagger slightly. She cleared her throat, gaze never leaving him as she said, in a dialect he knew, “You will not touch me, or I shall cut you.”

Keith opened his mouth, then closed it. The woman looked pleased at his shocked reaction. “I will not touch you,” Keith repeated. “But you cannot stay out here alone.”

She lifted her chin. “Where can I go? The nearest village is a day’s ride, and it is nearly dark.”

Keith hesitated. “My home,” he offered, “is not too far. It is warm. There is a fire. You would be safe there, from wolves and…”

“Wild forest men?” The woman eyed him. 

Keith blinked. He had not even thought of that. “Yes,” he said. “Although I have not seen any wild forest men around here.”

The woman’s mouth twitched. “None at all?”

Keith shook his head. “The cold will get you before they do, I think. Please, you’re turning blue.”

The woman shivered. “So I am.” She gave him one last look, then sighed, struggling to her feet. Keith started forward but she glared in warning, pointing the dagger again, and he stopped. “Fine, then. Take me to this home of yours...have you a name, wild forest man?”

“I am Keith,” Keith said. “Have _you_ a name, strange forest woman?”

She smiled then, quick and surprised, ducking her head as she stepped towards him with lingering caution but more trust than before. “You may call me Allura,” she murmured, and when he offered her his hand to help her up into Serebryany’s saddle, she did not stab him, and Keith was very glad.

*

“What I do not understand,” Allura declared as Keith brought a mug of hot tea to where she sat beside the crackling fire, “is how you acquired such a handsome steed and built such a pleasant little house in the forest, not to mention tamed a wolf.” Said wolf happily snuggled closer to her – she had adjusted to Kosmo’s presence remarkably fast. “I mean –” At this she coughed, her gaze lingering on his bare forearms before hastily looking away, “– clearly you are, erm, _capable,_ but – I thought these woods were barren!”

“It is a good place to live,” Keith said simply, handing her the mug of tea. She sipped it gratefully and gave Kosmo a scratch behind the ears. “If you thought these woods so barren, why come here at all?”

Her shoulders slumped and she tugged her cloak tighter around her. “I had no destination in mind,” she admitted, “I only wished to flee.” Keith waited patiently, watching the fire with her until she added softly, “My father has died, and I do not know what to do.”

Keith exhaled. “Ah,” he said. “No easy thing to bear, that.”

She turned on him, her eyes narrowing. “And how would you know?” she snapped, then cleared her throat and looked down. “I...am sorry.”

“No, don’t be.” Keith glanced at her and sighed. “It is a fair question. But my father died hardly two winters ago, also. I hope yours was a better father than mine, but it still...hurts.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “It does.” Allura looked at him in a new way, then offered her hand. “I’m sorry you lost your father, too. But...I am glad to not be alone in my time of grief, now.”

Keith took her hand carefully in his own and squeezed gently. “No, not alone,” he agreed. “You have a place to stay here as long as you need, perhaps until the worst of the winter has passed.”

Allura nodded, and gave him another rare but kind smile. “I thank you, Keith of the Forest.”

Something flickered in the window, a pair of silver eyes gone in an instant, reluctantly leaving the two young strangers to chat by the fireside well into the night.

*

Keith enjoyed the short days and much longer nights he and Allura spent together as the snows fell heavier and the fire roared ever higher, keeping them warm in the little cabin. She was a bright and witty young woman, and was all too eager to listen to Keith’s tales of living in the forest – though Shiro was carefully omitted from all of them. 

She at first said less about her own life, save that her father had died last month and her father’s friend had taken her under his wing. He was a good man, Allura said, but had no idea how to go about raising her and had at once set about finding her a husband. 

“Do you not want a husband?” Keith asked curiously.

She blushed. “How blunt you are!” She sounded scolding, but also delighted, so Keith did not apologize. “No, not yet. I am grieving, not ready for a wedding!” Allura exclaimed. “I wish he would understand that I need some time. He is, of course, worried about the state of my father’s estate –” At this she faltered. “Er, I mean…”

“Your father was wealthy,” Keith said, nodding to her richly hued and decorated garments. “That much is clear. Is he a boyar?”

Allura bit her lip and fiddled with her dress. “Is it that obvious?”

He shrugged. “The dialect you spoke in when we first met. I couldn’t remember at the time, but the only person I’ve heard speak like that was the boyar of the village where I grew up. Though I suspect your father ruled over more than a tiny village.”

Allura huffed and folded her arms. “Yes, well, fine, you’ve found me out. It’s a relief you don’t seem to be the sort of man who cares much for money.”

Keith chuckled and leaned back against the cushions they sat upon. “No, not much. I have all I need here.”

“Hmm.” Allura watched him, chin in hand. “You never did tell me how you ended up living here.”

Keith furrowed his brow, looking into the flames and wondering how much to tell her. “Well,” he began, quiet and halting, “when I was younger, my father...he married again, and the new wife hated me. She convinced him to, to take me into the woods and leave me there.”

“Oh,” Allura gasped, covering her mouth in horror. “Keith, that’s terrible.”

Keith shrugged, uncomfortable. “I...I suppose. I suppose I would have died, too. But someone saved me.”

Allura leaned closer. “Who?”

Keith wet his lips. “Have you heard the tales of the Frost King?”

Allura’s face split into an incredulous grin. “What – _Morozko?_ That children’s story?” Her smile fell when Keith did not smile back. “Oh, dear. You’re serious.”

Keith sighed. “Believe me or not, I think it must have been him. He took me to this place, and I’ve been here ever since.”

She swallowed. “I...I see. Can you leave? Did he curse you to stay here?”

Keith laughed, a small and tired sound. “No curse,” he said. “I stay because I want to. And I have nowhere else to go.”

She clasped his hand earnestly. “When the snows cease, come with me to town,” she said. “I will see to it that you have a roof over your head, and whatever else you want, for you saved my life, Keith – and you are a good man, besides. You shouldn’t be alone out here, in this desolate place, in Morozko’s domain!”

“I don’t know, Allura,” Keith said, looking around the cabin. “This is my home, and I would miss Kosmo…” The wolf was out hunting, as he often was, and Keith wondered if his wolf would miss _him_ half as much.

“Try it, at least,” Allura offered. “Just for a little while, to see what it’s like to live among other people. Who knows? You might like it.”

“I never much cared for other people,” Keith mumbled. “Truth be told, they frighten me.”

Allura rolled her eyes fondly. _“They_ frighten _you?_ Oh, Keith, for a wild forest man, you are not nearly as fearsome as you look.”

Keith blinked at her owlishly. “I look fearsome?”

She snorted. “You have a pet wolf. And have you ever cut your hair? Or shaved?”

“Um,” Keith said. “I...trim?”

Allura raised a slim silver eyebrow. “With your knife?”

Keith winced. “...With my knife.”

She huffed and jumped up, hands on her hips. Keith eyed her warily. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, I’m not going to _attack_ you. But I can show you how to shave. I watched my father do it many a time, I’m sure it will work on you too.”

Keith touched his scruffy chin and jaw. “Promise you won’t cut my face too badly?”

She beamed at him and waved her dagger. “Promise.”

*

Allura did not just teach him how to shave (with only minor cuts and mishaps). She also taught him how to properly sew and patch up his clothing, as well as how to embroider, an art Keith found as fascinating as it was frustrating. 

“You’re trying to make _flowers,_ Keith, not a –” Allura cleared her throat and blushed. “No, I’m not even going to try to guess what _that_ is.”

Keith threw down the needle in despair. “It’s no use!” he pleaded. “I’m no good at this, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t believe that for a second!” Allura exclaimed. “Listen, if you could teach me how to skin a rabbit, then you can learn how to do this.” She paused. “Hmm, maybe we can try something else. What do _you_ want to embroider, if not flowers?”

Keith hesitated, looking down at the needle again. “Uh...a stag.” He cursed himself for saying it, but it just slipped out.

Allura looked positively gleeful. “Ah! A challenge! Right. A stag it is, then. What color?”

*

It took until the last day Allura stayed with him in the cabin, but at last Keith had a passable stag embroidered. He looked at it for a while before taking it off the hoop and turning it over in his hands. It was small and not very neat, but he could tell it was a white stag and that was what mattered.

Keith glanced at the bed, which Allura had taken over during the winter. Keith was content to sleep on the floor before the fire. She was sleeping deeply, for it was not yet dawn, and she did not stir when Keith slipped outside with the stag. He looked up at the sky, where the brilliant lights of winter danced among the fading dark, and his heart grew heavy at the thought of leaving those lights behind. But perhaps it would be for the best, as Allura said – perhaps he would find he liked life among other people.

Frowning, Keith laid the white stag down on a nearby snowbank. “This is for you,” he said, feeling foolish talking to the trees. “If you want it. I...I think I’m going away for a while, so I wanted to give you this before I leave.”

The trees rustled and sighed. Keith stiffened and Shiro stepped out from the shivering aspens and birches, his eyes cold and glinting. “How thoughtful,” Shiro said. He looked down at the white stag, his expression impassive. Keith squirmed under the scrutiny. It had taken hours of work, but now before the Frost King it seemed a paltry, silly gift, just a little piece of linen with a tangled mess of thread. 

Keith turned to go, unable to bear his silent stare any longer. “Take it or leave it, I don’t care.”

“I will take it,” Shiro said, his tone so forceful that Keith froze. Softer, he added, “Of course, I will take it. Thank you, Keith.” Keith watched as he gingerly picked up the cloth, studying it with what could have been vague interest. “Who taught you to do this?”

Keith exhaled. “A woman,” he said. “She’s very skilled.”

Shiro’s gaze darkened. “Is she. How nice.” He then frowned, and cleared his throat, and murmured, “I am glad she has taught you such a fine craft. It’s good work.”

Keith could hardly meet his eye. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I...milord, I wanted to –”

“I am not,” Shiro said, “a lord.”

Keith’s shoulders slumped. He stared down at his boots, giving up with eye contact entirely. “Yes. I know that. Of course I know that. But I still feel I ought to call you it.”

“If you cannot call me ‘Shiro,’ then ‘demon’ will do,” Shiro retorted. “But no false titles. If I am lord or king of anything, it is of death, and that is a poor domain.”

Keith looked up at him suddenly. “But you didn’t choose that,” he said. “Did you?”

A long moment of silence stretched between them. Shiro’s gaze splintered, his mouth drawing thin, and when he stepped forward Keith did not know what to expect. He certainly did not expect Shiro to embrace him, quick but so tender it took Keith’s breath away. Shiro stepped away, as if Keith could not still feel the heavy imprint of Shiro’s arms around his waist, Shiro’s hand cradling his head, Shiro’s body warm against his own. 

“Safe travels,” Shiro whispered like it hurt to speak. “May you be happy, wherever you go.”

The snowflakes swirled and he was gone, leaving Keith standing stunned in the snow, his skin tingling with cold and heat and something he could not name at all.

*

They did indeed have safe travels to Allura’s town, made safer by the fact that conveniently enough, Allura’s horse wandered into Keith’s garden just as they were packing to leave. Allura exclaimed over how miraculous it was that her horse had survived so long in the snow, but Keith knew better. He searched the trees for a glimpse of silver, but found nothing. 

He hugged Kosmo until the wolf gently bit his ear and wriggled out of his grasp. Keith knew they would see each other again someday, but he still waved goodbye as he and Allura rode off. Allura giggled, shaking her head. “What an odd man you are, Keith.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Keith asked, riding up alongside her.

“No, no.” She paused, glancing at him. “Though...and, don’t answer if you don’t wish to, for perhaps I was dreaming, but...this morning, were you speaking to a man outside, in the woods?”

Keith tensed. “I…”

Allura’s lips quirked. “It was _him,_ wasn’t it?” she whispered. “Morozko?”

Keith nodded wordlessly.

Allura looked ahead, her expression thoughtful. “You care for him,” she said. 

Keith didn’t answer.

“It’s alright,” Allura added. “There are many strange things about you, but that isn’t one of them.”

Keith looked at her, heart beating a little faster. “Hm,” he said.

“Hmm,” she agreed, eyes sparkling. “Let’s race each other to that tree, there.”

Without warning, she nudged her mare into a canter. Thankfully Serebryany was all too happy to follow in hot pursuit.

*

The town was much like Keith imagined it to be, yet utterly different, for he had never seen anything like it. Allura’s home was of course the largest and grandest, on a hill overlooking the sprawling town of cobbled streets and too many houses and shops to count. Some of the roofs were thatched as Keith was used to, but others had fine sloping roofs made of brightly colored wood panels or thin strips of shale. Allura’s home was made of stone – stone! – and Keith could not stop gawking at it all.

Allura Alforivna was received home with warm celebration and a great feast. Keith, to his bewilderment, was treated just as warmly. Allura’s father’s friend, a jovial man named Coran with fiery orange hair and an impressive mustache, greeted him like a long-lost son and insisted he take a seat beside Allura at the feast. Everyone got quite drunk, and Keith was overwhelmed but relieved they did not think he was a fearsome wild man from the forest.

Every day in the town was overwhelming, and before long Keith found himself longing to return to the forest, as he knew he would. So it caught him entirely by surprise one night when Coran asked him when he wanted to wed Allura.

“Sorry?” Keith croaked, staring at the man in disbelief. Coran had met him in the late boyar’s study, a large, drafty room that set Keith ill at ease. “Marry? I don’t –”

“Oh, come now,” Coran said with a wave of his hand, “no need to play at coy. It’s clear the way Allura Alforivna looks at you, and it was very kind of you to bring her home to us as you did, but –”

“We are friends, sudar’,” Keith stammered, his face hot. “I hold no such feelings towards her, nor she I –”

Coran’s eye twitched. “You mean to say that you, a handsome enough young man, spent half the winter with Allura Alforivna in the middle of the forest and yet you have no desire to wed her?”

Keith was confused. “Why would that make me want to wed her?”

Coran was looking slightly purple. “Well,” he said, “forgive me for asking what you two did, spending so much time in close quarters as you were.”

Keith blinked. “She taught me embroidery,” he said.

“Embroidery,” Coran repeated, strangled. _“Embroidery?”_

“Sudar’,” Keith said nervously, “I don’t want to, um, offend, really – Allura Alforivna is a fine friend. But nothing more. I could not wed her.”

“And why not!” Coran exclaimed. “She is a wonderful young woman!”

“Yes,” Keith said. “She is. But I don’t –” He cleared his throat. The lie came too easily to his lips. “I already have a lover, sudar’. I could not betray...her.”

Coran faltered. “You – _what?_ But Allura did not mention any lover.”

Keith swallowed. “No, she does not know. It is not something I often speak of, and my lover only comes to visit me in the spring and summer, when passage into the forest is easier.”

Coran frowned. “I see, I see. Well, of course I would not ask you to forsake her, and if things are as you say and this marriage would be no joy to Allura Alforivna either, then I shall not force the matter. Unfortunately she still needs a husband.”

“Does she?” Coran looked sharply at him. Keith shrugged. “She’s a young woman, sudar’, with her whole life ahead of her. I think she knows what she wants – perhaps you ought to ask her.”

“I have tried!” Coran frowned. “But…” He sighed. “Perhaps you’re right. I was terrified out of my wits when she ran away, and feared I had lost her along with my dearest friend, her father.” He smiled at Keith – or at least, Keith thought he did, judging by his mustache. “Thank you for bringing her home. If you do not desire marriage, surely there is something we can give you in return.”

Keith thought about it for a while. “My horse could use a new saddle,” he said at last.

Coran chuckled. “Well, that’s a start,” he said.

*

Keith returned to the forest before winter’s end. He and Allura said their tearful goodbyes and she made him promise to visit. It was a promise he was glad to keep. Coran sent him off on a new saddle with a purse full of more coin than Keith knew what to do with, and the assurance that he could call in a favor or two should he need them. Keith wasn’t even sure what that meant, but he was thankful anyway.

He let out a sigh of relief as soon as he was among his forest again, comforted by the closeness of the trees and the fragmented sky through the branches. It was good to know that he truly did belong here; he felt the rightness of this place down to his bones. Allura could not understand how content he was to be alone here, but he was not truly alone.

At the thought of Shiro, his heart leapt. Maybe this year, Keith could find him before it was too late. What then? Would Shiro stay in the spring? Would he visit Keith more often? Would he embrace Keith again, a little longer than before?

When Keith reached the cabin, he was surprised to find it cold and silent. Usually the fireplace roared to life when he drew near, as if to welcome him back. His unease grew as he got Serebryany settled into his stall and found all the latches and metal hooks rusted, some even in danger of falling apart.

He left the stable and almost yelled in surprise, finding himself face to face with Shiro. The Frost King’s expression was stormy and severe, and Keith flinched back. “What are you doing here?” Shiro demanded, ice crackling through his words.

Keith stared up at him. “What – what do you mean? This is my home, I –”

“You were to leave with the boyar’s daughter,” Shiro snapped. “Not return.”

Keith’s chest constricted. “You wanted me to leave?” he whispered, and then, in greater horror, “Did _you_ make Allura Alforivna get lost in the woods?!”

Shiro’s jaw tightened. “Why does it matter? You found her, it was a good match, and –”

“A good match!” Keith exclaimed, indignation bubbling up, now. “What are you, a _svakha?_ Psh!”

“She is beautiful!” Shiro argued. “You were supposed to fall in love with her and take her as your wife!”

Keith took a step back. _“Supposed_ to? Says who? You? And what do you know about such things, Frost King?”

“More than you!” Shiro retorted, and Keith flinched. “You are just a naive boy who throws away the best life a man could ask for –”

“I threw away nothing!” Keith hissed. “I did not want to marry her, I wanted to stay here.”

Shiro stared at him, eyes burning. “You are a fool to say so.”

“You once told me I could stay here as long as I wanted,” Keith said, his anger fading replaced by exhaustion and raw, stinging hurt. “Was that a lie, Shiro? Are you throwing me out, now?”

Shiro took a step back. “You should not stay here,” he said, low and level. “To live alone, with no...no companion, no family...you don’t want that life.”

“Don’t tell me what I want,” Keith snapped. “I know what I want and it’s right here.”

Shiro bowed his head. “You will never be happy here.”

“Why do you want me to leave so badly?” Keith pleaded. “Have I done something to wrong you?”

Shiro kept his head bowed. “It will be kinder for you to leave.”

At his infuriating passivity, anger reared its ugly head afresh and Keith’s hands curled into fists. “I’m not going anywhere,” he growled, “so unless you plan to drive me out of this forest yourself, or else let me die of frostbite like you apparently wish you’d done six years ago, I’ll be here.”

Shiro did not protest. “You will not see me again, I think,” he whispered.

Keith’s breath caught. “You are a cruel king after all, then.”

Shiro’s head lowered further, like a kicked hound. “Not a king,” he reminded, weakly. “Not anymore.”

He left Keith with that, and Keith did not see him again for five years.

*

As Allura informed Keith, he was beginning to get quite a reputation. 

So maybe he played up the wild forest man act a little. It was hardly an act. After Shiro left, seemingly for good, Keith decided he could truly rely on no one but himself. With stubborn spite, he threw himself into the role Shiro claimed he would never be happy with, the role of a man alone in the forest, living off the land, feared and respected by those who knew him. He often rode Serebryany into nearby villages for supplies or good ale, and each time, his reputation grew beyond himself. 

They called him Voronoy Vsadnik, the dark horseman, a name which bewildered Keith. Allura explained it was for his hair, black as a raven’s wing and now braided thick and wild down his back, and for his stubble-dark jaw which refused to bear a full beard but which he kept perpetually scruffy. He had the appearance, she said, of a man who should not be crossed; an air of darkness surrounded him like a thick cloak. 

Keith didn’t know much about “airs of darkness,” but if it meant people left him alone, then that was just fine by him. 

There were stories aplenty about the Voronoy Vsadnik, few of which had any anchor in reality. Some said he was an estranged prince from a far-off kingdom. Others said he simply sprung from the woods themselves, or else was raised by wolves after being abandoned as a child. This last tale was the closest to the truth, unfortunately.

Keith did nothing to dissuade the rumors. He rode his fine stallion through towns with all the fancy trappings Coran and Allura had given him, and often Kosmo trotted alongside them, now a full-grown tundra wolf with a striking black pelt and golden eyes that the villagers found unnerving in their intelligence. 

Keith made few friends, something which saddened Allura but which Keith simply accepted. People were complicated. They believed they knew what was best for Keith, believed that if they could only find the _humanity_ in him, they could persuade him to live among them, to raise a family, to _be_ one of them. 

But he would never be one of them. He couldn’t understand them and their lives, all tangled up in social ties and politics and wealth and whatnot. Life in the forest was simple. He had all he needed, there.

Well, not _all_ he needed. Some nights, there was an itch beneath his skin and he would find himself saddling up Serebryany to ride to the nearest tavern in search of more than just ale. Most nights, he would find it easily enough, though he never left feeling particularly satisfied. More like temporarily sated with a heavy undercurrent of guilt and an unhealthy dose of misery. 

Night after night, he hoped he might find someone who made him forget about the Frost King. But they were but shadows compared to Shiro. Warm bodies, nothing more. Allura said this was a callous and cruel way of thinking. _Perhaps I am callous and cruel,_ Keith said. She gave him a stern look, but her lips curved down in deep sorrow, and when she told him she knew he was better than that, he wished he could believe her.

It was funny, really – Keith couldn’t even wholly say he _enjoyed_ his nighttime pursuits, at least not in any sense other than physical. He enjoyed...making others fear him, perhaps. Never hurting them, never that, and never frightening them when they didn’t _want_ to be frightened, but most of the ones who came crawling to him did so wanting to know if the tales were true. If he really was a dangerous, untamed beast from the forest. So he gave them that. They never had any complaints. Keith thought it made him feel a little better. A little more powerful, at least. Or maybe just a little more useful.

Afterwards, sometimes they would try to be soft with him. To burrow close to him, or drape a casual arm over his waist, as if they had any right to. Keith would make his excuses and leave every time. He wasn’t there for that. Not from them.

He was aware this was a poor way to go about life, but right now, eyeing another stranger across the tavern with intent, he didn’t think he was about to stop.

The stranger approached before he did, and Keith pretended to be engrossed in his ale, leaning back and avoiding eye contact until the man sat down at the bench across from him with a heavy thud of his tankard. Keith dragged his gaze upwards, raising a slow, unimpressed eyebrow. The man was big, which wasn’t unusual, but he had a glint in his eye that Keith wasn’t sure he liked. “Can I help you?” he asked quietly.

“Maybe,” the stranger drawled, leaning forwards on his elbows. “Folk say you’ve got a liking for men like me. That true?”

Keith paused, a bit startled by his forwardness. “Depends,” he muttered. “I dunno what you’re ‘like,’ now do I?”

The man’s lips curled under his beard. “Sharp tongue on you. Bet you put that to good use upstairs.”

Keith’s eyes narrowed. Unfortunately, the man was very good looking, and Keith’s ale was running very low. “You sound to me like a man who doesn’t know what he’s asking for.”

“Oh, I heard things. I know.” The man winked. “So? What d’you say?”

Keith pushed his empty tankard towards the man. “Fill this up for me, and follow me upstairs when I’m done.

“Very well,” the man said, still grinning – more like a fox than a wolf – and brought Keith’s tankard to the bar.

*

The two of them stumbled into the room upstairs that Keith had long ago claimed – he gave the innkeep fresh venison and embroidered handkerchiefs for his daughters, for although he did not have much coin he had learned how to trade in favors – and right away Keith was crushed against the door, a hard mouth fitted to his own.

Keith grumbled and shoved the man back – kissing was too intimate for his liking – and found himself facing down a man who looked at Keith with a hunger that made his skin crawl. “Bed,” Keith snapped, and though the man lifted his palms with a smile and sauntered over to the bed, laying down easily enough, Keith’s skin didn’t stop crawling. He shrugged it off. He was well and truly drunk, and sometimes ale made men paranoid. He had control of the situation. It was fine.

He approached the man with wary slowness nonetheless, and shed only his thick fur cloak before joining him on the bed, one thigh on the outside of his hips and the other pressed down between his legs. The man reached up and Keith smacked his hands away with a growl. “Stay down,” he warned. “You’ll take what I give you, that clear?”

“Crystal.” The man’s smile widened. Keith’s brow lowered, but he shoved his thigh forward in a rhythmic, practiced motion before starting on the laces of the man’s trousers. The man chuckled under him.

“What,” Keith gritted out, eyes darting up to his face. “What’s so funny?”

“You,” the man said, and Keith froze, bile rising in his throat. “Yeah, you heard me. Imagine my surprise when I heard the Voronoy Vsadnik was giving men the fuck of their lives, but none of ‘em were making _him_ take it –”

“I suggest,” Keith said, low and unsteady, “you stop talking.”

“Fine,” the man said. “Why talk when I can do this instead?”

He surged up and flipped them, shoving Keith down so fast and hard that Keith barely had time to react, kicking out with a wordless snarl as the larger man pinned him. “Fuck,” Keith bit out, “fucking – _svoloch,_ get off –”

“See, it’s such a waste – waste of a pretty face, just ‘cause...they’re scared of you, but look...at you – you’re hardly a man, pretty as a girl under this, I bet.” The man was breathing hard; he may be big but the effort had cost him. Keith lay still in a furious haze of alcohol and rage that steadily reddened the corners of his vision. The man tugged up the back of his tunic and whistled appreciatively, sliding his hand over Keith’s spine. “I was right –”

Something in the contact of his palm on bare skin made Keith snap. He bucked up and jabbed his elbow back with all his strength, viciously pleased when it connected with bone and the man let out a howl of pain, letting go of him for a moment. Keith kicked out and rolled violently, throwing the man not only off of him, but onto the floor with a sick crack. The man’s howl became a low groan, and Keith climbed off the bed, rolling his shoulders and glaring down at the now cowering fool. Then the man made a grab for his ankle.

Keith didn’t think, really. He fell upon the man in a flurry of fists, unrelenting even when the man stopped making sounds and his hands began to ache. Too long, probably. When he finally snapped out of it, he stumbled back and away, staring blearily down at the man. His face was a bruised and bloody mess. Keith thought his chest still rose and fell with breath, but he couldn’t be sure, and that uncertainty terrified him. 

He turned on his heel and ran from the room, fumbling with his cloak and knowing that he would not be allowed in this tavern any longer. Downstairs, the innkeep tried to stop him, but blanched and stopped short at the sight of Keith’s knuckles, almost black with bruising. Keith didn’t stop to explain. He grabbed a tankard of ale someone had left at the end of their table and downed it, ignoring their shout of protest which faded as they saw who he was, and stormed out of the tavern. 

He rode Serebryany back to the woods too hard, driving the stallion faster than he could manage, so Keith supposed he deserved it when he was thrown from the saddle and into the snow. Keith landed with a grunt and didn’t get up, laying on his side, half-curled, below a tree that could have very well been the same one his father left him under. The thought made him laugh, and laughing made him hurt – his ribs must have been bruised in the fall.

Serebryany thundered off into the forest, probably headed home, away from the man who made him gallop all the way back. Once again, Keith was abandoned. He stared at the dirtied snow dazedly, shivering not from the cold but because he swore he still felt the ghost of a touch on his spine. “Mudak,” he muttered to himself, hoping it would make him feel better. It didn’t. It just made him remember the man’s face afterwards, or what was left of it. 

Keith closed his eyes. Maybe he would freeze to death here in the snow. Maybe it was what he deserved. Truth be told, he couldn’t think of any reason not to just let it happen.

A warm cloak fell over him, and Keith started awake, out of the numb haze he’d settled so easily into. “We had a deal,” Shiro whispered. “You promised you wouldn’t die.”

Keith swore and tried to get away from him, but his frozen limbs would not obey. “Don’t touch me –”

“Keith, hush,” Shiro sighed. “You’re bleeding.”

It was true. Keith’s bruised knuckles were cracked from the cold and dripping red onto the snow, and when Shiro took Keith’s hands in his own with a soft, sad sound, Keith’s fingers were too numb to move away. “I don’t want your help,” Keith mumbled. “Don’t need it.”

Shiro gave him a flat look. How was it that he looked just the same as he always had, save for the white streak in his hair, which had widened even further, to nearly a third of his hair?

“Someone hurt you,” Shiro said.

“I hurt them,” Keith snorted, humorless. “Killed him, maybe.”

“Some acts warrant death,” Shiro said, his voice colder than Keith had ever heard it. 

Keith managed to tug his hands out of Shiro’s grasp and curl away. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Pretend you care.”

Shiro’s entire body slumped. _“Keith.”_

“I said, _don’t.”_ Keith focused on the searing cold of the snow against his face and not on the agony in Shiro’s expression. 

Shiro bowed his head. “Do you hate me?”

Keith didn’t answer. Couldn’t, because the answer should have been yes...but it wasn’t. He doubted it ever would be yes. Hating Shiro would be like hating the winter itself – it could not help what it was, and what it was would not change, and it would never go away, never leave Keith in peace. He didn’t know if he would even have peace if it did leave him. Probably not.

And Shiro had saved his life, in more ways than one, and Keith loved him. With every bit of his sorry heart, he loved the Frost King, the one whose heart was cold as ice.

Or so the stories said. 

“I am sorry, Keith,” Shiro said after a long moment. “But I will not leave you here. Even if you will hate me for it.” And he lifted Keith up into his arms, as easily as he had the first time they met though many years had passed, and he walked with Keith through the trees and snow and into a warm cabin. 

“Why,” Keith whispered as he lay on his own bed, staring at the ceiling, and at Shiro crouched at the fireside, making soup yet again. “Why save me? Hundreds freeze in these woods. Do you let _them_ die?”

Shiro stirred the pot of soup slowly. “You were in the right place at the right time. That is all.”

“You’re a liar.”

Shiro flinched. “I...I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“The truth,” Keith pleaded. “Why do you die each year? Why are you a king without a palace? Why does that streak in your hair grow wider with every day?”

“You ask for many truths,” Shiro sighed. “But the short answer is that one year, I will die, and I will not return.”

Keith lay very still, very conscious of his pounding heart and shallow breaths. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Shiro murmured. He lifted the pot from the fire and poured some soup into a bowl. “For what it is worth, I will miss you.”

Keith stared at him. “When?” he whispered. “When will it happen?”

“Soon.” Shiro touched his hair. “When I am all silver,” he chuckled weakly. “As it happens with humans, no?”

“But you are not human,” Keith whispered, his mind snagging, unable to accept these awful words. 

Shiro hunched his shoulders. “Yes, you must see me as some cold, deathless thing with a man’s face. I understand. Many have said so. But it was not always so.”

Keith swallowed. Shiro set the soup down on the table, and then from thin air pulled bandages and a bowl of some kind of poultice. Keith’s knuckles had been cleaned by the snow, at least, but he still hissed when Shiro smeared the poultice over them and began to carefully wrap them in gauze. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Keith muttered.

Shiro did not look up. “Yes, I do, because I know you won’t do it yourself.”

“They’re just bruises,” Keith said, trying to pull his hand away.

Claws dug into his wrist. “Hold still,” Shiro warned, and Keith did.

He watched Shiro wrap his knuckles with uneasy acquiescence. “Have you ever killed someone?”

“You mean, other than all those you accused me of murdering because I left them in the snow?”

Keith winced. “Yes.”

“A few,” Shiro said. “Not as many as you’re thinking.”

“How many do you think I think you killed?”

Shiro’s gaze was sad as he met Keith’s. “Too many.”

Keith had to look away, his chest tight. Shiro finished bandaging and stepped away from the bed.

“I don’t hate you,” Keith said, looking down at the blankets, at the quilt he had made last summer, at the squares he hadn’t meant to hold leaping stags, but which held leaping stags anyway. “I just wanted you to want me to stay here, not try to send me off to wed a boyar’s daughter.”

“But are you happy here, Keith?” Shiro asked.

Keith curled deeper into the blankets. He took a deep breath. “I am happy,” he whispered, “to see you again.”

Shiro’s face fell. “That is not –”

“I know you will die,” Keith said, his voice cracking. “But everyone dies, Shiro.”

“Every winter –”

“So stay for the winters,” Keith said. “Why did you never stay? You barely visited once a year.”

“And even that, it seems, was too much.” Shiro shook his head and went to the door. “I was selfish when I found you, Keith – that is the truth. I know now that I should have brought you to another village, found someone to care for you, to raise you in the world you belong in. I thought – I _hoped_ you could be happy here. But I was wrong. The prophecy, as prophecies often are, was wrong.”

“You saved my life because you believed a damn prophecy?” Keith demanded, even as Shiro reached for the door handle, even as Keith knew he might not see Shiro again for five years more. 

But Shiro paused, hand resting on the handle. He glanced at Keith. “I saved your life because you are you, Keith,” he said, and gently opened the door, stepping out into the snow he called home. 

*

Keith did not return to that tavern nor to any other. He visited the villages rarely. He had heard talk that the Voronoy Vsadnik was a murderer. He was glad the man was dead, but not glad that he had been the one to kill him.

Of course, Allura summoned him. They sat for a long time together in her quarters, a tower overlooking the town. They drank sbiten together in front of the frosted window in silence until Allura said, “This is my fault. I told you to mingle more with common folk, outside of the forest.”

“No,” Keith protested immediately. “No, the fault is mine. I don’t know how to _mingle._ I was too bold. I didn’t _want_ to mingle, really.”

Allura took a long sip of sbiten, savoring the warm honey-spice, and tilted her head. “Keith, what _do_ you want?”

“What I cannot have.”

“Right.” She sighed, chin in hand. _“Morozko.”_

“I don’t know why,” Keith muttered. “I shouldn’t want him.”

“Why not?”

He frowned at her. “He’s a demon.”

Allura shrugged. “Demons can be good.”

“He doesn’t want me.”

“Why do you think that?”

Keith huffed. “He tried to make me leave; he wanted me to marry you, not him.” His face grew hot.

“Or maybe he did want you, but thought you didn’t want him, so thought it would be kinder for you both to set you up with me. Ever think of that?”

Keith blinked. “What?”

She waved a hand. “Nevermind. The point is – you don’t know that he doesn’t feel the way you do. Perhaps he’s just afraid.”

“Afraid?” Keith echoed, bewildered. “But what could the Frost King ever be afraid of?”

“What are we all afraid of?” Allura asked, softly. “Loss, Keith. Perhaps he’s just afraid of losing you, and you, him.”

“I lose him every year,” Keith whispered.

“Yes,” Allura sighed. “Exactly.”

“Oh,” Keith said. _“Oh.”_

*

One night, Keith had a dream. 

In the dream, he was walking through the forest, but the trees were like ghosts, turning to mist when he touched them. He was searching for something, or perhaps someone, but whatever, whoever, it was...it was always just out of reach. Through the mist and remaining trees, he could see a faint gleam up ahead, like lights in cabin windows, but there were too many windows for it to be a cabin. 

_A palace,_ he thought. 

He remembered, all at once, a story his mother had told him about a palace. He could not remember if it had been a sad story or a happy story, but either way it was about a palace, not the one everyone knew of in the city, where the tsar lived, but a palace to the north where no one had ever visited. 

_How could anyone know about it if no one has ever been there?_ Keith had asked his mother.

She had laughed, and he could feel it from deep within her chest. She had sat behind him, brushing his hair, her hands gentle but firm. His memories of her were always fragmented like this, reducing her to mere limbs, to bits and pieces – her hands, her shoulder, her hip, her chest, her voice. Never her face. 

_It is not a place meant for people to just ‘go,’_ she had told him. _You don’t go there like you would go to the farm down the road, Keith._

 _Then how do you go there?_ After all, as a little peasant boy more familiar with hogs and mud than palaces, Keith had been eager to visit.

 _You have to be invited,_ she told him, low and serious. _You will know if you’ve been invited because you will dream of it._

Keith had smiled, bewildered yet delighted by this idea. _Have you dreamed of it, then?_

She had paused. _Yes,_ she had admitted. _But I don’t think the invitation is for me. It’s for you, my son._

Keith’s eyes widened. _Me? I can go to the palace? When?_

The brush stilled in his hair. _When you dream it,_ she said, _then you will know it is time._

It had been so many years that Keith had forgotten the palace, as he had forgotten his mother, but as soon as he remembered, the mist and trees cleared and the palace rose up above him, white as the snowy earth save for the brilliantly silver domes atop each soaring tower and the gilded metalwork along the rooftops, trailing over the stone like eternal frost. 

The gates were open, and as he walked through them, the palace doors opened wide, spilling the warm candlelight within across the pale snow. 

Keith walked faster. He knew who was inside the palace. He knew who this palace belonged to. “Shiro,” he whispered, breath tangling with the icy air, “Shiro, it’s me, I’m here. I’m finally here.”

He stepped across the threshold, and the door slammed shut behind him. Stumbling forward in fright, Keith strained to see in the darkness. He stood in a wide, circular room. In the center sat a figure, curled, long silver hair covering their face and brushing the cold tiled floor. The figure was unmoving, but when Keith started towards them, they bowed their head and began to weep. 

“Shiro,” Keith called again, his voice echoing through the cold, silent palace. “Shiro!”

Behind him, hot breath huffed over the back of his neck. Keith whirled and found himself face to face with the white stag. It stared down at him with its dark, depthless eyes. Then it tossed its great head and ran past him, out of the room and deeper into the castle, hooves clicking on the tile, echoing endlessly. Keith ran after it.

“Shiro!” he called again, and again, his lungs burning, his legs growing numb, his skin cold and breath surrounding him in pale clouds. “Stop! You don’t have to run anymore!”

But the stag kept running, bounding through the twisting halls and empty rotundas, up and down spiraling flights of stairs that made no sense at all. Still, Keith pursued him. It was not a hunt, it was a rescue. Who was Keith saving Shiro from? Himself? This place? The very world? Keith ran faster.

Just as his breath began to falter and his legs began to fail, he began to catch up. The white stag leapt into the largest rotunda yet, but they were not alone. At the other end of the rotunda stood a shadowy man with a gun, aimed at the white stag. The stag did not move, but stood there impassive and resigned, for it knew there was nowhere to go, no way to escape this fate.

Keith ran in front of the stag as the man fired in a blinding crash of gunpowder. The stag reared, crying out as Keith fell to the tiled floor, the bullet hot in his chest. The man with the gun took a step back, then ran away, but Keith had eyes only for the white stag as it knelt beside him, bowing its antlered head. “Shiro,” he whispered, soft and content, and closed his eyes.

He woke up to bright sunlight and snowy treetops swaying in a slight breeze. He could not feel the cold beneath him, though the cold also no longer mattered, because Shiro was kneeling beside him, Keith’s head in his hands. His eyes widened as they met Keith’s. “You’re alive,” they said at the same time, and both smiled, Keith’s smile so wide that his face hurt.

“It wasn’t a dream,” Keith whispered, “was it?”

Shiro shook his head. He was still holding Keith’s head, one hand cupped warm round his cheek. “No,” he said. “No, you saved me. Keith, you did it. You broke the cycle, you...you are the one I have been waiting for.” His voice broke. “I hoped it was you, but I was...afraid to hope.”

Keith stared up at him, leaning into his touch. “Your hair,” he whispered. “The silver is disappearing.”

“Yes,” Shiro agreed. “Only a little will remain – I am the Frost King, after all.”

Keith’s breath caught. “I thought you said you were not a king?”

Shiro’s right hand found Keith’s, tangling their fingers and squeezing. “Will you walk with me, Keith? Just for a little while.”

Keith nodded, confused but willing, and Shiro helped him to his feet. His chest was sore where the bullet had struck him, but there was no blood. “Did I die?” Keith asked as they began to walk hand in hand through the forest, warmed by the weak sunlight of the winter morning.

Shiro hummed. “Does it matter? You came back.”

“How?”

Shiro looked up at the trees. “You were meant to come back. You were the only one who was ever meant to come back.”

Keith drew in a sharp breath. “There...there were others?”

Shiro’s smile was pained. “Just one. But – let me start at the beginning.”

“There was a prophecy?”

“Yes. But before the prophecy there was a witch.”

“A witch?”

Shiro gave him a look. “Keith.”

“Sorry.” Keith shut his mouth.

“Many, many years ago, there was a witch,” Shiro continued. “I knew there were other demons but thought myself one of, if not the, most powerful. I was wrong. I was prideful, and the witch was spiteful. She took my arm when I rose it to stop her, then cursed me to take the form of the white stag at the end of each winter. I would be hunted and killed each time, then resurrected when the first snow fell. Each year I would grow closer to death, for though I was once an immortal king, she stripped me of my palace and much of my power. After a time, I grew...despondent.” Shiro sighed, and Keith squeezed his hand. Shiro gave him a grateful look, steeled himself, and continued. “When I tried to bring my cursed life to an end once and for all, the witch returned, sensing I was trying to thwart her. She amended her curse: it could be broken, by one who would break my cycle of deaths, and…”

Keith peered up at him. “And? And what?”

Shiro cleared his throat. “And help me restore my power. But...I think she did it not to help me, but to give me false hope, to make me want to keep waiting, to let the curse run its course so she could watch me suffer. I don’t think she ever actually thought you would find me.”

“I think you found me, first,” Keith murmured. 

“But you chose to stay,” Shiro said. “Against all odds, you chose to stay.” He sighed again. “And I began to think, to hope again, that it might be you.” His shoulders slumped. “But I had already hoped once. Yes, here we are.”

Keith followed Shiro’s gaze down to the base of the tree they stood before. Among the roots was a small stone shrine decorated with candles and snowdrops. Inlaid into the stone was a painting of a young man. Shiro knelt before the shrine, and Keith followed suit. The small painting was detailed, lifelike. The man had brown skin and dark eyes, with tousled hair the same faded umber as the rowan tree he rested under. He was handsome but somber, unsmiling.

“I thought he was the one,” Shiro said. “And he paid for it. Dearly.”

Understanding, Keith huddled against Shiro’s side, a sudden chill sweeping through him. “He didn’t come back.”

“No.” Shiro closed his eyes. “I died, as I always did, right after I watched him die. And when I returned the next winter...his body was gone. I never found it. While he lay dying, I was dragged away into my slumber. I could not comfort him. I could do nothing but sleep and mourn.”

“Oh, Shiro,” Keith whispered, for it was all he could say. He held Shiro’s hand tighter. 

“Yes.” Shiro glanced at him. “This is why I could not let myself believe it was you, Keith, especially after you did not break the cycle the first time you saw the white stag. This is why I wanted you to leave with Allura Alforivna. I knew if you did not, you would die because of me, sooner or later, and I –”

Keith covered his mouth with a finger and Shiro went cross-eyed. “I am not dead,” Keith said. “But if I had died, it would _not_ be your fault. You did not choose this. No one should have to suffer what you have suffered.” He exhaled. “But that is over now – isn’t it?”

Shiro hesitated, disbelief flickering over his face. “Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, I...I suppose it is.” Then he turned a bit pink, and stood abruptly. “Ah, there is – one more thing.”

Keith followed him as he walked away from the shrine, deeper into the woods. “Yes? What is it?”

Shiro turned abruptly and Keith almost walked into him. They both blinked at each other, flushed. “The one who broke the cycle, who broke the curse,” Shiro started, “they – he – you – were meant to help me regain my power by becoming my, my consort.”

Keith stopped breathing. 

“That was the word the witch used,” Shiro added hurriedly, “but I would much prefer a more equal rulership, and anyway, you are under no obligation to be my, erm, consort, or anything at all, you do not need to stay at all if you do not wish...what are you doing?”

Keith knelt before him on one knee in the snow. “I don’t mind that title,” Keith admitted, looking at his reflection in Shiro’s shining boots before slowly lifting his gaze to the Frost King’s shocked face. “I would gladly stay and rule beside you, Shiro. I...I would gladly be yours, my king.”

Shiro’s jaw dropped and his hands flailed at his sides. “Please, get up,” he finally managed, strangled. “Keith, please.”

A bit hurt, Keith stood, unsure what to make of Shiro’s panicked tone, at least until the Frost King grabbed him by the front of his cloak and pulled him in for the kiss Keith had wanted for years. _“Oh,”_ Keith gasped against his mouth, then threw his arms around Shiro’s neck and kissed him with all he had, his hands tangling in Shiro’s hair as Shiro tilted his head and let Keith taste him, all at once ice cold and burning in Keith’s very core. 

“Wait,” Shiro said, pulling away, no, no, why was he pulling away? Keith clung stubbornly to him, and was glad he had when Shiro stammered, “Keith, you must know, I have no palace, it is in ruins.”

Keith squinted at him. “I don’t need a palace,” he said. “Shiro – we have everything we need right here.”

Shiro melted in his embrace, and when he cupped Keith’s cheek, this time Keith indulged himself in turning his face to kiss Shiro’s palm and nuzzle into it, savoring the warmth. “Yes,” Shiro agreed breathlessly, watching Keith with dark eyes, “yes, I think you may be right.”

“Of course I am,” Keith huffed, and Shiro laughed loud and bright and kissed him again, this time pushing him lightly away, enough that Keith lost his balance and fell backwards with a yelp. But he never landed in the cold snow – instead he found himself on a soft bed before a warm fireplace in a familiar cabin. He blinked up at Shiro, who chuckled and kissed him again, and Keith relaxed under him, wrapping an arm around Shiro’s waist to draw him closer, sighing against the parted seam of his lips as Shiro’s weight bore down on him, comforting in its completeness. 

“Every time you went away,” Keith whispered, “I missed you. So much, Shiro, so much.”

Shiro broke away from his lips to kiss the sharp edge of his jaw, down his arching neck and starting on the laces of his tunic as he replied, “I was never far, you know. I could never seem to leave you.”

Keith shuddered when Shiro’s other hand slid under his tunic, smoothing over his belly and chest. “But – but you wanted me to leave,” he couldn’t help but say, choked and frantic.

Shiro leaned down close and shook his head. “Keith,” he promised softly, “that is the last thing I ever wanted.”

Keith’s fingers fumbled with the hem of Shiro’s pants, fingers dipping below it. “What did you want?” he whispered.

Shiro grinned, as shy as it was excited. “So many things,” he admitted, and kissed Keith again, until they were both rolling further onto the bed, laying side by side and tugging at each other’s clothing with laughable impatience. “But I’m sure you have a few ideas of your own,” Shiro added when he’d unlaced Keith’s tunic, shoving it away to openly admire the lean muscle born of hard work and self-reliance. 

Keith had never been self-conscious before, but with Shiro, it was different. Everything was different. “A few things,” he muttered, throwing off Shiro’s cloak and struggling to unlace his tunic, his fingers suddenly clumsy and incapable of the most simple movements. “Sorry, I –”

Shiro covered Keith’s shaking hands with his own and smiled gently. “Don’t be sorry,” he said. “You are beautiful, Keith. I love you.”

Keith gave up trying to make his hands work entirely. “No,” he said weakly.

Shiro’s brow lowered. _“No?_ What –”

“Why do you – that’s not – I thought I would have to _court_ you, to convince you that I would be a good consort, not that you would already –” Keith trailed off. Shiro’s expression was both amused and dangerous. He swallowed. “I didn’t think it possible that you could already love me.”

 _“Hmm.”_ Shiro sat up, his shadow falling over Keith as he finished unlacing his own tunic, yanking the delicately embroidered work of art up and off of him as if it were nothing but a nuisance. Looking at him bare-chested, Keith would have to agree. He might have whined, just a little – if he did, Shiro kindly ignored it. Shiro didn’t stop there, though. He climbed off the bed and began unlacing his pants. Keith stayed on the bed, utterly dazed, not convinced he wasn’t still dreaming. “Not a dream,” Shiro chuckled. Keith turned red. Good to know he had reached the point where his mouth just said whatever it wanted. 

Shiro unlaced his pants fully and stepped out of them, returning to the bed with knowing eyes as Keith began to sweat, unable to stop glancing between the strong yet curving lines of Shiro’s chest and the not-so-hidden swell of his cock curving up against his thigh. “I love you, too,” Keith gasped when Shiro climbed over him, easing Keith’s pants down with sure hands that could easily wrap around Keith’s entire waist. “Just – just so you know.”

Shiro snorted, nuzzling under Keith’s jaw with small, sucking bites and kisses. “I am glad to hear it,” he rumbled, and slid his hand into Keith’s pants.

“Blaugh!” Keith exclaimed in surprise, somehow not expecting that. Shiro lifted his head to blink at Keith with mild concern before both of them burst out laughing. Shiro buried his face against Keith’s shoulder, his own shoulders shaking, unable to stop his giggles. “Your hand was cold!” Keith squawked, swatting at Shiro’s head when he just kept giggling. “Hmph.”

“I love you,” Shiro said when he’d managed to stop, his eyes still sparkling with mirth. “More than words can say, solnishko.”

 _Little sun._ Keith’s chest was filled to bursting. He dragged Shiro down into another kiss, for Shiro was right – words were no longer enough. Shiro hummed and continued where he had left off, nudging Keith’s pants off until he could kick them away and then they were skin to skin, the hot slide of it sweeter than anything Keith had felt before. 

He realized then that this was what people meant by pleasure. It was not just pleasure of the flesh, but of _everything,_ tingling through him with every touch Shiro gave him, and every touch he gave Shiro. It was addicting and wonderful. Keith pressed closer, stroked his hands over Shiro’s skin, earnest and exploratory. He listened for the sounds Shiro made, the ones that Keith could not help but echo. 

He was so determined to do this right, to be present with Shiro the way he had been unable to with all previous bedpartners, that he almost did not notice it when Shiro slid two fingers between his own thighs and straddled Keith’s hips, leaning in to kiss him in shivery, sighing presses of his lips. When Keith realized what he was doing, he groaned helplessly, releasing Shiro’s cock to follow the path of his fingers. He shuddered again at the sensation. “Shiro – you don’t have to –”

Shiro’s eyes flashed. “Oh, hush. As if this is – _ah_ – a great burden, and not a great honor.”

Keith’s face was hot for too many reasons to name. “An honor,” he managed, “yes, it is an honor to be with you, to –” He couldn’t say it. Shiro did what no one else could – he made Keith _shy._

“Have me?” Shiro finished, and tipped his head back in a low moan, shifting down onto his fingers, shining muscle flexing and glowing with streaks of gold firelight on sweating skin. Looking up at him, Keith did not know how he could be anything other than a king. 

Keith went back to stroking Shiro’s cock, fitting his fist around it slow and almost teasing, admiring its weight, imagining how many other nights they would have like this one, how many more things they could try with each other. His own cock twitched at the thought, leaking over his thigh, and Shiro palmed at it with his free hand, lips curling like he knew the lazy touches drove Keith mad. 

In an attempt to distract himself, both from Shiro’s wandering hand and his increasingly desperate expressions and sounds, Keith said, “Have you bedded many others?”

Shiro laughed, short and sharp. “What a question,” he said. “Enough, though I don’t have your reputation.”

Keith bit back a groan and tried to retort, but his tone was without venom when he said, “I – I didn’t know you knew about that.”

Shiro’s eyes narrowed. “Of course.”

Keith wet his lips. “Are you jealous? You shouldn’t be. None of them were you. I’ll never visit those taverns again.”

Shiro chuckled. “It almost sounds like you _want_ me to be jealous.”

Keith was silent, his breath hitching.

Shiro stopped teasing him and braced his hand over Keith’s chest, letting Keith feel the entirety of his weight and the heat of his gaze. “Oh, I see. That is what you want, hm? For me to stake my claim, show them all that you’re mine?” Keith whimpered and Shiro’s smirk widened. “Did you think of me, Keith, when you were fucking them?”

“Every time,” Keith gritted out, hands locking onto Shiro’s hips. “I wanted –”

“I know what you wanted,” Shiro said, pointedly looking at Keith’s cock. 

“No,” Keith said in a rush, because Shiro needed to know all of it, _all_ of it. “No, I didn’t just want – I want everything, Shiro, everything you would give me, I don’t care, I just – I just want you, however you would have me – _nngh!”_

Shiro sank down on his cock in one smooth motion, dipping down for a kiss to swallow Keith’s groans while he rolled his hips slow and deep. “Everything,” Shiro agreed, his face slack with bliss and fondness, “yes, yes.”

Keith’s nails dug into Shiro’s hips as Shiro moved faster, and he knew this wasn’t going to last, knew that it would not have mattered how many bedpartners he’d had before this, none or a thousand, he still would not have been able to withstand Shiro like this, tight and hot around him, soft and smiling over him, licking into Keith’s mouth and biting at his lips each time Keith thrust up, meeting him halfway. 

He had to apologize. Shiro deserved better. Keith was just starting to say it when Shiro shut him up with another kiss, squirming over him, his thighs flexing and squeezing around Keith’s waist with so much strength it made him dizzy. When Keith fucked up into him, Shiro’s thighs squeezed tighter; Keith was going to be so bruised and he was thrilled about it. 

Between them, Shiro was stroking himself off, but as Keith felt his valiant attempt to hold off wearing thin, he smacked Shiro’s hand away and took over, no longer teasing but rough and fast enough for Shiro to groan and shudder, trying to rock back onto Keith’s cock and forward into Keith’s fist, settling for a kind of jerky writhing that only Shiro could make look elegant. 

In the end, it was a bit of foul play that did him in. Keith was certain he was going to make Shiro come first, absolutely sure of it, and then Keith thrust up harder than before, prompting Shiro to moan Keith’s name right in his ear and tighten around Keith’s cock so unexpectedly that it pushed him over the edge, coming with a shocked groan and only just managing to fuck Shiro through it. By the end of it he was trembling with sensitivity and made a wounded sound, hands petting anxiously at Shiro’s hips. 

Thankfully, Shiro understood and moved off of him, laying beside him on the bed and stroking Keith’s damp hair out of his dazed eyes. “Good, good,” he cooed, “you did so well, I knew you would.”

Keith opened his mouth to protest, then thought of something better to do with it in a moment of post-climax genius. “Lay down,” he said, shaking off the torpor sinking into his limbs with a vengeance. He could sleep after this. 

Shiro raised an eyebrow but did so, giving Keith a bemused smile before his features sharpened in understanding and want. Keith kissed his way down Shiro’s body, making note of all the places that made him squirm. Those could be explored in greater depth later – for now, he had just one thing in mind. 

He wrapped his lips around the crown of Shiro’s cock and let his eyes fall half-lidded, opening his mouth wider to take more of it in, knowing it wasn’t all going to fit – not yet, anyway – but not particularly caring. Shiro didn’t seem to care, either, struggling to stop himself from arching up into the heat of Keith’s waiting mouth. 

That wouldn’t do. Keith huffed and sank down further, until his jaw ached and the taste of sweat and musk flooded his tongue, all too much yet not enough. Blindly, he prodded two fingers between Shiro’s legs, humming in satisfaction when he found Shiro’s leaking hole and pressed the two fingers in without resistance. Shiro shouted above him. Keith barely heard, losing himself in the easy curl of fingers in sticky heat and slow swipes of his tongue until Shiro’s hand found his hair and his cock spilled down Keith’s throat in hot pulses. 

Keith pulled back, coughing but pleased, especially when he saw Shiro’s blissful face and felt the way he fluttered in helpless spasms of pleasure around Keith’s fingers. Keith grinned and leaned his head onto Shiro’s thigh, waiting until the Frost King came back to the world of the living, cracking an eye open and peering down at Keith. “Mm,” he mumbled. “You look good there.” His ears turned pink, like he hadn’t meant to say it.

Keith blew a raspberry into his thigh and Shiro chuckled, petting his hair back from his messy face. “I feel good here, too,” he admitted, and shifted up just enough to snuggle over Shiro’s chest, arm flung over his waist. Shiro did the same, and Keith smiled sleepily into the blankets. 

He thought Shiro might have fallen asleep, but after a while, Shiro murmured, “I’m glad it was you.” Keith blinked up at him, and Shiro cleared his throat. “Maybe...maybe we didn’t really choose this, because it was the witch’s spell, but I’m glad you were the one, Keith.”

Keith smiled, fond but exasperated, and tucked the remaining silver strands of hair behind Shiro’s ear. “Don’t be silly,” he murmured. “Of course we chose each other.” He lifted Shiro’s right hand to his lips, kissing each knuckle. “You chose to save me. I chose to stay. You chose to leave me – to protect us both. I chose to ignore that.” Shiro laughed softly, but his eyes brimmed with tears. “You chose to take my gift,” Keith added. “I chose to make it for you. You chose to give me a home, a wolf, a horse, anything I desired. I chose to desire you instead.” He smiled, as helpless as Shiro. “You see? I don’t care about the witch and the curse. I care about you. That’s all there is to it.”

The firelight danced in Shiro’s eyes. “I love you,” he breathed, and when he kissed Keith then, somewhere far away – yet not so far at all – a shining palace began to emerge from centuries of snow.


End file.
